Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

these conditions seemed to bind him indissolubly to theland of Costaguana like an awful procedure of naturalization,involving him deep in the national life, far deeperthan any amount of success and honour could have done.They did away with his Europeanism; for Dr. Monyghamhad made himself an ideal conception of his disgrace. It wasa conception eminently fit and proper for an officer and agentleman. Dr. Monygham, before he went out to Costaguana,had been surgeon in one of Her Majesty’s regimentsof foot. It was a conception which took no account of physiologicalfacts or reasonable arguments; but it was not stupidfor all that. It was simple. A rule of conduct resting mainlyon severe rejections is necessarily simple. Dr. Monygham’sview of what it behoved him to do was severe; it was an idealview, in so much that it was the imaginative exaggeration ofa correct feeling. It was also, in its force, influence, and persistency,the view of an eminently loyal nature.There was a great fund of loyalty in Dr. Monygham’snature. He had settled it all on Mrs. Gould’s head. He believedher worthy of every devotion. At the bottom of hisheart he felt an angry uneasiness before the prosperity ofthe San Tome mine, because its growth was robbing her ofall peace of mind. Costaguana was no place for a woman ofthat kind. What could Charles Gould have been thinking ofwhen he brought her out there! It was outrageous! And thedoctor had watched the course of events with a grim anddistant reserve which, he imagined, his lamentable historyimposed upon him.Loyalty to Mrs. Gould could not, however, leave out